The Higher Education Strategy Review Group, widely reported to favour the reintroduction of third-level fees, is finally due to report shortly. There is no convincing argument against the return of third-level fees. In fact, it is likely that the Irish education as a whole is damaged because of the persistence of ‘free’ third-level education. The [...]
An interesting working paper from the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard by Christian Ketels of the World Bank. The subtle argument being made is that policies which target competitiveness improvements will achieve greater prosperity growth – and will increase exports – more than policies which target export growth directly. There is actually quite [...]
This is an interesting (and scary) visual representation of how Irish unemployment has changed on a county by county basis since April 2005.
Here is a link to the slides from a presentation on the Smart Economy by Eoin O’Leary and I at the Dublin Economics Workshop in Kenmare this weekend.
Yesterday’s Innovation magazine of the Irish Times carried an article on the Government’s Innovation Taskforce which included comments from myself and Karl Whelan of UCD. Karl writes some more about this topic here. My comments were based on a conversation with the writer of the article, Fiona Reddan, and a piece I had written. The [...]
The Irish Times today carries a piece I wrote about the setting of targets to measure innovation – which have implications for the entire science community and the economy.
There is a new page on the ESRI website providing links to academic research of relevance for understanding the ongoing recession in Ireland.
This is a link to an article of mine in today’s Irish Times Innovation magazine on the UCD/TCD research merger and why it is unlikely to deliver on its targets.
The annual European Growth and Jobs Monitor (EGJM) report was released today showing a startling difference between the Ireland of 2007 and the Ireland of 2008. The EGJM measures competitiveness in 14 European countries. Ireland has moved from among the top rankings in this report to near the bottom. The EGJM describes Ireland as having [...]